Tonight I was at a friends apartment complex. It is a college complex, very nice and not the place I would expect to see what I saw tonight. We were just inside watching TV when I heard a lot of yelling outside. I went out onto the front porch with my friends to see what was going on. The porch is on the second floor (you have to go up the stairs to get the the front door and porch landing). There were about 10 guys on each side of the porch yelling and taunting each other in the parking lot in front of us. A fight was obviously about to happen. Pretty much as soon as I stepped outside 2 guys ran at each other and started going at it. They were brawling as the rest of the crowd yelled at each other looking like it was about to turn into a full on street brawl. The two main guys fighting actually ended up between 2 cars swinging furiously (one of the cars just happened to be mine). As they bounced off the cars beating the crap out of each other I saw another guy about 3 cars away emerge with a 12 gauge pistol grip shotgun. He immediatly fired 2 shots into the air. Before he even got the second shot off I had already gotten my cell phone out and was back inside the apartment dialing 911. The dispatcher said that they had already gotten a couple calls about the fight and I told her that they needed to get the cops out there immediatly because shots had been fired. I went back outside to see what was going on. The police were there in about 2 minutes. For some reason none of the thugs had left and they were all pretty much still there when the police arrived. Guns were drawn and people were patted down. The cops ended up staying and trying to sort things out for about an hour or so. My friends and I were on the porch watching the whole process when one of the cops emerged from an apartment a few doors down with the shotgun. I never saw anyone get arrested. during the whole process. The only thing I can figure is that they never really knew who it was that shot the thing. The cops talked to everyone who witnessed it and no one seemed to know exactly who it was that shot. Everyone pretty much ran inside as soon as they saw the gun. I never got a good look at him either.
If I had to witness it over again I would have taken a good look at exactly what the guy looked like before calling the cops. After a while the cops finally found the gun and I saw them take it out of an apartment that the guy ran into but I never saw anyone get arrested. I just bugs me that someone could do something so stupid and dangerous and not get arrested and I think that if some of us would have been thinking more clearly we could have ID'd the guy.
So basically the moral of the story is that these things happen so fast. Take 3 seconds and get a look at the perp. so that they don't get away with putting dozens of lives in danger just because their friends won't rat them out and no one else got a look at them.
If I had to witness it over again I would have taken a good look at exactly what the guy looked like before calling the cops. After a while the cops finally found the gun and I saw them take it out of an apartment that the guy ran into but I never saw anyone get arrested. I just bugs me that someone could do something so stupid and dangerous and not get arrested and I think that if some of us would have been thinking more clearly we could have ID'd the guy.
So basically the moral of the story is that these things happen so fast. Take 3 seconds and get a look at the perp. so that they don't get away with putting dozens of lives in danger just because their friends won't rat them out and no one else got a look at them.
Let's see, guy armed with a shotgun who has already fired it twice? And we go back outside to watch?!? And that's a good reaction?!? I'm sorry, but my 24 years of military experience has to kick in here...the first thing to do when shots are fired is to take cover...and not to expose oneself unless it is to shoot back.